Celebrate National Postdoc Appreciation Week with UBC PDA!

Socials

npaw-thank-youThere will be an annual BBQ on Thursday, September 22 from 12 noon at St John’s College. This will be followed by a dinner this Friday (details below).

National Postdoc Appreciation Week Dinner

When: Friday, September 23, @ 7:00pm                                                               Where: The Eatery – 3431 W Broadway, Vancouver, BC V6R 2B4 (map)
Details: The Eatery is probably the coolest sushi place in Kitsilano. It’s known for its creative sushi rolls and its artsy atmosphere. Appetizers will be covered by the PDA, then we’ll walk down the street for a beer. RSVP to Justin Hart.

Catch you there!

What is National Postdoc Appreciation week? National Postdoc Appreciation Week (NPAW), sponsored by the National Postdoctoral Association, takes place September 19-23, 2016. Now in its seventh year, NPAW will be celebrated across Canada and the U.S. to create awareness of and recognize the contributions that postdocs make to research.

 

PDA Research Day 2016

Events, Professional Development, Seminars

research-day-blog-header-image

We are excited to announce that we are holding our annual Research Day on Thursday November 24, 2016! This half-day mini conference is our flagship event every year. This is a great opportunity to showcase your research and network with individuals from diverse departments at UBC and industry.

Presentations (2:15 – 4PM LSC3 Theatre)
Posters and reception after the oral presentations (LSC Atrium)

If you are a UBC affiliated postdoc or research associate and would like to make a 10 minute oral presentation or a poster presentation, please submit your abstract here (oral presentation deadline: 1st November, poster presentation deadline: 18th November).

Attendance is free and open to all interested parties. Please RSVP here, by 23 November. Space is limited (last year we had a wait list), so please sign up early to avoid disappointment! Cash prizes to be won and drinks and refreshments will be served.

Make your voice heard: UBC Federal Research and Innovation Initiatives Consultation

Policy

Members of the UBC research community across every discipline, including postdocs, are invited to participate in a campus-wide consultation to share their advice and perspective on the input UBC provides to the federal government on its Review of Fundamental Science in Canada. UBC is seeking input on the questions pertaining to scientific research in Canada, such as:

  • How do we develop, recruit, and retain talent?
  • What is the best structure of granting councils and peer review?
  • How should Canada participate in international research?

If these issues resonate with you, please attend the roundtable meetings, planned as follows:

  1. Tuesday, September 6, 1.00-3.00 pm
    UBC Vancouver Campus
    Seminar Room,
    Sage Bistro
    6331 Crescent Road, Vancouver
  2. Wednesday, September 7, 2:00-4:00pm
    Blusson Lecture Hall,
    ICORD
    818, West 10th Avenue, Vancouver

Please express your interest in participating in one of these roundtable sessions via the form here.

Alternatively, you can contribute through a direct written response to the Fundamental Science Review here through the Government of Canada.

PDA Socials for August

Events, Socials

Join one today! If you’re nervous about finding us, or have any other questions about our socials, please e-mail Justin Hart, at justin.hart@mech.ubc.ca.

Dinner & Bar Night at Storm Crow Alehouse
Stormcrow alehouse v2
When: Aug 19, 2016 @ 6:00pm
Where: Storm Crow Alehouse, 1619 W Broadway (map)
Details: Storm Crow Alehouse is Vancouver’s premier fandom & geekdom themed bar. Drink shots randomly assigned by the roll of a D20, or randomly generate a dungeon burger! Play board games from Storm Crow’s extensive menu. Bond with your fellow postdocs in the closest approximation to our natural habitat outside the laboratory. RSVP to justin.hart@mech.ubc.ca

Movie-night clipartMovie Night at Justin’s
When: Aug 27, 2016 @ 6:00pm
Where: Justin’s House – RSVP for address
Details: This spring, members of the postdoctoral association helped Justin build massive projection home theater in his home. Unfortunately, this will be the last hurrah of the home theater, as he is moving to a new residence. We’ll vote on 2 Blu-Ray movies and watch them in style. BYOB RSVP to justin.hart@mech.ubc.ca
See you there!

UBC PDA Trivia Team Wins Grand Prize for Spring Season!

Socials

20160705_215953

Congratulations to our small, but dedicated team of trivia buffs! The UBC PDA Trivia Team won the Mahony’s Tuesday Trivia Grand Prize for the Spring Season! Showing up every week for the 12 week season, the team placed in the top 3 over 8 times, winning Mahony’s gift certificates and ballots for the grand prize draw! We plan to enjoy these fruits of our labour by having a celebratory party at Mahony’s over the summer.

Trivia is completely a numbers game – the more people on your team, the better you do, no one person knows the answers to all the questions, and our small team definitely didn’t! If this is an event you’d like to see occur again, or would like to participate in the future, please contact us and let us know!

UBC PDA Socials for July!

Events, Socials

It’s summer! The UBC PDA has a variety of socials coming up – from lunch meet up on campus to public swim at Kits beach – join one today!

If you’re nervous about finding us, or have any other questions about our socials, please e-mail Justin Hart, at justin.hart@mech.ubc.ca.

canada-day-fireworks

Canada Day Fireworks social
When: July 1 at 7.30 pm
Where: 9 O’clock Gun at Stanley Park (map). Note: Location changed!
Details: Join your fellow postdocs to see the Canada Day fireworks from Stanley Park! Bring a lawn chair or blanket to sit on and a covered dish dessert or snack to share. Stanley Park is very busy during fireworks displays, so please RSVP in advance so we know to expect you. Come early and help us stake out a spot or meet Justin at 7:30pm sharp at the 9 O’Clock Gun. RSVP to justin.hart@mech.ubc.ca.

Lunch Meetup at AMS Student Nest
When: The first Thursday of every month at noon
Next date: July 7, 2016
Where: AMS Student Nest (map) – Meet in first floor near the entryway
Details: Join your fellow postdocs for a casual lunch in the AMS Student Nest food court. Reconnect with your colleagues across campus or make a new friend! If you’re nervous about finding us, drop the VP Social an email at justin.hart@mech.ubc.ca. No RSVP required.

Poutine & Bar Hopping on Granville St
When: July 8, 2016 at 6:30 pm, poutine at 7:15 pm, followed by bar hopping
Where: Start from Smoke’s Poutinerie – 942 Granville St, Vancouver, BC (map).
Details: It’s summer, so the bars on Granville St are a popular spot in Vancouver. We’ll start by grabbing some classic Canadian fare at Smoke’s Poutinerie, then do drinks at the bars on Granville St. If you’d like to do only drinks, meet us at Smoke’s at 7:15 pm. We’ll go to The Speakeasy, then see where our interests take us. Granville St is busy during the Summer, so you won’t find us unless you RSVP. RSVP to justin.hart@mech.ubc.ca.

Public Swim at Kits Pool
When: July 23, 2016 at 2:00 pm, drinks at 6:30 pm
Where: Kits Pool, 2305 Cornwall Ave, Vancouver, BC V6K 1B6 (map)
Details: Join us for a day at Kits Pool. Sit in the sun or swim to your heart’s content. Cost of admission is $5.86 per person. At 6:00 pm we’ll change out of our swim trunks and have dinner and a beer at Local on Cornwall. RSVP to justin.hart@mech.ubc.ca.

See you there!

Medical / Grant Writer Position available at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS

Jobs and Funding

BCHIV_Logo_Final-Horizontal-Web_0Do you enjoy writing? Have an eye for detail?

The BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS is looking to hire a Medical Writer / Grant Writer as part of their Addiction and Urban Health Research Initiative.

See the full job posting here [pdf].

If you are interested in this position, please contact the HR Coordinator at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, at hr@cfenet.ubc.ca.

Additional job postings can be found on the Centre’s website: http://www.cfenet.ubc.ca/join-us/careers.

The 3 Minute Postdoc Slam of 2016 – Event Review!

Events, Professional Development

This year’s 3 Minute Postdoc Slam was a great success! Over 40 postdocs, faculty, staff, and students gathered in the LSC3 lecture theatre in the Life Sciences Institute to hear 7 postdocs, from 7 different departments, present their research in only 3 minutes with the aid of a single PowerPoint slide.

3MPs review 1

This year we started out the event with a special guest talk from Craig Jones, winner of the UBC 3 Minute Thesis competition and a finalist in the Canadian National 3MT competition. He gave a fantastic and engaging talk titled “The War Lawyers”, and set the stage for a great afternoon of presentations.

Our first contestant in the competition was Dr. Elisa Wong from Pharmaceutical Sciences, who presented her talk “The story of a powerful mutant population”. Next up was Dr. Kais Dridi from Electrical and Computer Engineering with a talk on “How Can Nanotechnology and Nanostructured Materials Revolutionize Solar Energy Conversion Systems?”. Dr. Noushin Nabavi from the department of Urologic Sciences then presented her work “Understanding Mesothelioma: inter- and intra-tumor heterogeneity”. The last talk of our first half was “Reward cues and decision-making” by Dr. Mariya Cherkasova from the Faculty of Medicine. Following a short coffee break, Dr. Amir Sharafian from Mechanical Engineering spoke on “Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG): A Green Transportation Fuel”. Dr. Jennifer Rowland from Michael Smith Labs spoke on “Remote control: Bacteria modify epigenetics to take over your cells”, and our final contestant of the day was Dr. Carly Priebe from the department of Kinesiology who gave a presentation titled “Run to Quit”.

All our postdoc presenters were judged by our 3 judges: Dr. Cara Haney from Michael Smith Labs, Dr. Jonas Beaudry from the Allard School of Law, and Dr. Tara L Klassen from Pharmaceutical Sciences.  The judges evaluated each presentation on comprehension, communication and engagement, and made numerous comments about each presentation, which were given to the presenters following the competition. Prizes were awarded to the top three presentations as scored by our judges, as well as to the “People’s Choice” presenter, which was determined by the audience.

Following the presentations from our contestants, we had an excellent and informative talk from Dr. Tara L Klassen on the topic of communication – “Car Salesman or Professor: Communicating your Message”.  The event was finished off with a networking reception – good food, drink, and conversations!

3MPs review 2

3MPs review 3

Thanks to all that presented, and attended, in making the day such a success!

Congratulations to our award winners!

1st place ($100): Dr. Carly Priebe

2nd place ($75): Dr. Mariya Cherkasova

3rd place ($50): Dr. Jennifer Rowland

Peoples’ choice ($25): Dr. Elisa Wong

CAPS / ACSP Executive Election and Referendum

Professional Development

CAPS-ACSP

CAPS (the Canadian Association of Postdoctoral Scholars) is currently holding elections for the 2016-17 executive council.  The following candidates have been nominated:

Chair:
Dr. Mohamad Nadim Adi
Dr. Joseph S. Sparling

Vice-Chair External:
Dr. Nafisa Jadavji

Vice-Chair Communications:
Dr. Mónica Sesma-Vázquez

Vice-Chair Finance:
Dr. Pengwei Wang

Candidate statements can be found here [PDF].

Any postdoc that is a) associated with a Canadian institution (regardless of citizenship), or b) a Canadian citizen (regardless of location) can vote.  There will be an electronic vote for the position of Chair, to be held in conjunction with a referendum on changes to the CAPS-ACSP constitution (information on the proposed constitutional changes can be found here [PDF]). As there are no other candidates Dr. Jadavji, Dr. Sesma-Vázquez and Dr. Wang will be acclaimed to their respective positions.

You can vote at the Google form here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1PDu9Plbel4yOSDkzrtENRWbqpsBE6q0znstxjbHLHp0/viewform?c=0&w=1&usp=mail_form_link

Voting will end at 5PM Pacific time, on May 31, 2016.

Additionally, the positions of Vice-Chair Operations and Vice-Chair International will be reopened for nominations. Nominations for these two positions are now due by June 7, 2016. Descriptions of these positions can be found in this document [PDF].

If you wish to run for either of these positions, please respond by email to operations@caps-acsp.ca indicating:

  • Your name
  • Your email address
  • The institution where you work as a postdoc
  • The position you wish to run for
  • A short (< 250 words) candidate statement that will be distributed to voters.

Thank you for your interest in the future of CAPS-ACSP!